Plan foresees more Detroit school closures, fewer students

DETROIT (AP) -- Enrollment in the Detroit Public Schools is projected to nose-dive to fewer than 40,000 students, according to a deficit elimination plan the district filed with state Education officials.

The revised plan, which the state approved earlier this month, also projects the closing of 28 more schools over the next three years as the district continues to chip away at a $72 million budget deficit. The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press reported on the plan Thursday.

It calls for the district to see a $2.6 million positive fund balance by the end of the 2015-16 fiscal year. Emergency manager Roy Roberts, in a letter to staff posted on the Detroit Public Schools website, called the plan an "aggressive approach to eliminating the deficit in an effort to prepare the district to become an effective, efficient and, most importantly, a long-lasting organization."

Roberts, a former General Motors executive appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder in 2011 to run the district's finances, said no decisions have been made about school closures.

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"The deficit ties our hands operationally and academically in so many ways," he wrote in the staff letter. "Currently our spending on support services is far too expensive and our debt service too high to allow resources to be allocated to our nearly 50,000 students."

Under the plan, $195 million in expenses will be slashed between 2013-14 and 2015-16. Meanwhile, the school district could lose more than $180 million in state per-pupil funding through 2016, when enrollment is expected to dip to about 38,400 students.

More than 540 teaching jobs and 470 support services positions are expected to be cut between 2014 and 2016.

Roberts said in his letter that "the district will have no choice but to continue to shrink" if it keeps losing students.

"I know that this is not what any of us wants to see happen," he said. "My goal is for all of us to work together to grow the district."

The Detroit district has been under state oversight since 2009. Roberts succeeded Robert Bobb as emergency manager. Bobb was appointed by then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Snyder's predecessor.

The projected school closures would follow dozens of others in recent years.

After dropping below 100,000 in 2008, Detroit's enrollment continues to fall, with many parents sending their children to suburban districts and public charter schools in the city.

Roberts' plan also calls for a 2 percent pay raise in fiscal year 2015 -- the first wage increase for all district employees in 10 years.